That was fast…

That was a lot faster and much less painful than expected.  The blog has now been moved to http://ataleoftentoons.com.  The new rss feed is http://ataleoftentoons.com/?feed=rss2

I look forward to seeing you at the new home!

Moving

Sometime today I’ll be moving the site off of wordpress.com to a new host.  Hoping for a painless transfer, but guessing the two of you subscribed here may need to update your feeds.  More details upon completion.

Blizzcon Wrap-Up

I’ll keep this short as you are sure to get reviews of much greater quality and detail elsewhere.  This will just be a couple of things that jumped out at me.

1. No more mana for hunters.  YAY!  Focus makes a lot more sense to me.  I can’t wait to see how this pans out.

2. Cross-server instances.  Hmm.  Okay, I see this as a mixed blessing.  On the one hand, it increases the chance that you’ll be able to find a group for whatever you may be doing.  This is handy.  I spent days trying to find people to run Outland heroics for the achievements a few weeks back.  On the other hand, it also greatly increases the pool of “we give pugs a bad name” players.  I wonder if they’ll increase the size of one’s ignore list with this and cross-server (game, maybe?) communication.

3. Worgen.  This is a toughy.  I LOVE the idea of a wolf based character.  Love it.  So much so, it was the reason I tried Vanguard.  Still can’t shake that mistake…  Anyway, they downside for me is this, the Worgen is an Alliance race.  And while I, unlike many guildies, don’t have a seething hatred for the Alliance (Hell, my second 60 was an Alliance hunter in vanilla), I don’t like the idea of leveling him without access to my Horde friends.  The social aspect of the game is important to me.  This is like putting on blinders and earplugs.  Sometimes that’s a good thing, but for the entire life of a character?  Not my bag.  I’d love to see the addition of cross-faction communication for people on your friends list.

4. Deathwing.  Wreaking havoc on good ol’ Azeroth?  Sign me up!  I can’t wait to see what the devs do with some of the old zones.  I have a lot of good memories from old Azeroth, leveling sooooo many characters there.  It will be nice to be able to play there again, for the first time, essentially.

There were many, many, MANY more things mentioned, but these are the ones on my mind this morning.  Hit up WoW.com or something for some some in depth content.  It’s going to be one hell of an expansion.

Slow, but I’ll get there

I just noticed something.  The venomhide hatchling GROWS over the course of the dailies!  How cool is that!  Off to Blizzcon now, much more later!

Blizzcon!

Roughly 29 hours before I head to the airport.  Pretty excited.  Should be an interesting time.  Looking forward to any confirmed expansion details.  Add to that the chance to play SC2 and D3, and I’m set.  The only thing needed to makes this trip comparable to last year’s, though, is another picture with Felicia Day

I think Project 800 will have to be renamed.  Maybe Project 750ish.  I will have them all in Northrend soon, but not sure how far I want to take them all.  At 65 they can already train in the Grand Master professions.  I think the biggest hit to this project will be if they do indeed announce new playable races.  Especially if the Alliance gets Worgen.  I do love the wolfmen.  Bastards.  My 10 character slots on Area 52 are already full, so I either have to reactive one of the RaF accounts or find a new server home for Alliance guys.  Well, this weekend will be revealing in that area.  Any Alliance folk out there?

Project 800 (750ush) Update:

Acyclovir/Priest/65
Ychromosome/Paladin/65
Mustache/Mage/65
Farmerdeath/Rogue/62

715/800(750ish)

Financial Inventory

Well, patch 3.2 is here.  Have to say, enjoying it so far.  Loving all the different Druid looks around.  That’s exactly what this game needs.  Variety in looks.  I hope they build on this.

I blew my (gold) load on patch day.  Epic riding and regular flying all around.  I was so proud of myself.  I was broke, but I had 10 chars that could fly…or so I thought.  Turns out, I never purchased flying for the DK.  /facepalm  So, I’m sitting at 9 while I farm some gold again.  Oh well.  I’m also happy to say that of the 20 professions across the 10 chars only 1 is below 300.  I’m hoping to have Mustache’s Inscription to Outlands level soon.  Let me say this though, leveling mining for the 4th and 5th time is PAINFULLY boring.  With three chars that use the mats, though, it was the gathering profession of choice.

Here’s my inventory of money sinking needs and luxuries:

Key: DS=Dual Spec, Flying = 225, Epic = 300, NR = Cold Weather

Kwato – DS, Flying, Epic, NR
Zelq – DS, Flying, Epic, NR
Hono – DS, Flying, Epic, NR
Qualcoso – DS, Flying, Epic
Schwa – Flying
Halfrack – None /cry
Mustache – Flying
Ychromosome – Flying
Farmerdeath – Flying
Acyclovir – Flying

Okay, looking at that, the goals to reach are:

1 Flying (600g)
1 DS (1000g – Priest is only other char I want to experiment on)
1 Epic 300 (5000g – Probably DK, mostly just to have an even half of the chars with epic)
7 NR (7000g – Ouch)

I have 3 chars in Northrend who can’t fly there yet (one who can’t fly at all).  This is the first goal.  I figure the chars still in Outlands have plenty of time to save up for NR flying so that by the time they get there they should be good.  I do need to do some serious farming on the ones in Northrend, though.  I hate being this broke.  Hard to do though, sooooo want to camp Skoll though.  Come on, all three spirit beasts?  That’s calling the OCD hardcore!

My blankie

I’ve tried just about every MMO out there.  When new ones come out, I try them too.  Over the last 4+ years though, WoW is the one that I keep coming back to.  It’s got a sick hold on me.  I’ve tried on multiple occasions to break that hold.  Move away.  Hide.  It doesn’t work.  I keep coming back.  I think I’m about to give up.  I’m going to stop wasting my money on other games (except for Old Republic…mmmmm).  I guess I’m just not built for polygamistic gaming.  WoW has made me its bitch.  I’m okay with that.

So, I’m still waiting on my slackass guildies to get in gear and run some old Outland heroics.  I’m sitting at 23/25 on the tabard achievement.  I think a heroic cycle of TK should finish up Sha’tar.  Not sure what’s closest after that.  Probably Lower City.  We’ll see if I can’t get at least one down this weekend.  Don’t make me PUG it, Casualty!

Pike, over at Aspect of the Hare, writes some good stuff.  If you have a hunter, you should be reading it.  If you know a hunter, you should be reading it.  Anyway, she recently did a post on Beast Master raiding.  It came at a good time. Since BC came out, BM has been my favorite spec to play.  Until a couple patches ago, that was fine, it was a solid tree.  Well, the nerf and mass exodus to Survival hurt.  I admit it, I went to SV too.  But it just didn’t feel right.  Was it fun?  Sure.  Was the DPS awesome?  Damn skippy.  But it wasn’t…me.  Well, her post breaks down some things that you can do to close the DPS gap a bit between BM and the other two specs.  Now, I’m not the super awesome player that will rock faces regardless of what spec I am.  Those people scare me.  I don’t know how they do it.  I’ve tried.  I can’t.  I don’t know why.  So, I need all the help I can get.  That post helped.  I was able to pull Loque and Gondria out of the stable and smile again.  Thanks, Pike!

The quickpost

Lot’s going on in my little gaming world.  Played DDO Unlimited and Aion betas, fired up EQ2 (no one was on so I didn’t stay long), and a fair chunk of WoW since I last posted.  Blizzcon coming up, quite excited on that front.  Various revelations, etc. etc.  I’ll try to get a post up with some actual meat soon.  No, really.

Been a while, so here’s a quick Project 800 update:

Qualcoso/Druid/74
Halfrack/Death Knight/72
Acyclovir/Priest/60
Ychromosome/Paladin/60
Mustache/Mage/60
Farmerdeath/Rogue/60

Project 800: 696/800

SPCA Drive

Brajana over at MendPet is hosting a donation drive for SPCA.  From the blog:

The SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) is constantly working to provide health care and shelters for pets and animals that have been abandoned and abused.  All the pets I’ve ever had have come from local shelters, which would not exist without the help of charities like this and their doughty volunteers.

So, being a good little hunter, I’d thought I’d advertise this to the one or two people reading.  Go go!

Project 800 Update

First off, some fool is stealing my thunder, Project 62*80.  Just remember, I was doing this first.  So what if it’s not as grand, dammit.  /facepalm

Kwato/Hunter/80
Zelq/Shaman/80
Hono/Warrior/77
Errun/Druid/72
Halfrack/Death Knight/71
Schwa/Warlock/70
Acyclovir/Priest/41
Ychromosome/Paladin/40
Mustache/Mage/40
Farmerdeath/Rogue/40

Project 800: 611/800